The Long Summers
by Humbuggy
Summary: Our Summers were long and lazy, our rewards for slaving away at thankless jobs and university degrees. Summer was something that kept us going during the year and later, the memories would give us an escape and the strength to endure the war. Oneshot.


Disclaimer: Not mine.

The Long Summers- No pairing althrough there are hints of Kanda/Allen and Lenalee/Lavi.

Rating, K+ to T

Oneshot.

Read On!

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><p>The sun would dip and kiss the horizon, setting the sky on fire and the cloud's blushing a soft pink at the sun's ardent passion. That's how it always was in summer, the waves on the beach rolling and crashing and rolling and crashing, glimmering with deepest sapphire blue. They were the lazy days, the ones where we would do nothing but spend all day in the sea. We would all get up at languid hours, squirming under doonas and blankets. Kanda would relax his usual crack of dawn hours to get up at around six thirty, me following shortly at seven. Kanda and I would go for a run on the beach, sand under our bare feet, hearts pumping in time to the rhythm of thumping feet. Lavi and Lenalee never got up until eight thirty, when the smell of cooking pancakes would lure them out. We all ate them on the deck, indulging ourselves with maple syrup and thick, sweet butter that Lenalee brought from the farmers markets. In the beginning, Kanda, the patriotic samurai he was, refused to forgo his <em>soba <em>in favour of my pancakes. In the end Lavi had to pin him down while I stuffed the hot, buttery pancakes into his mouth, Lenalee laughing and smearing syrup over his face and hair. Kanda was scowling and spitting death threats that we knew were only a little half hearted. After that, to save his pride, and to protect his long black hair from further abuse, he had to eat the pancakes too. We knew that the scowl on his face was skin deep and only on for show.

Afterwards, we would all pile into the big, barely road worthy, busted up kombi van; Kanda on the wheel, Lenalee on shotgun, Lavi and I in the back, my dog Timcanpi between us, bags in the boot, surfboards on the roof. We would forgo the popular, crowded beaches because of my disfigured left arm, and instead drove for miles down lonely highways to find beautiful, remote, isolated beaches. Some stretched for miles, wild and wind tossed; others tiny, hidden gems with soft, star white sand as smooth as silk with tall reaching palm trees just on the edges of water that was so clear and so blue it was like swimming in liquid azure.  
>The best of these beaches had reefs just off the shore; ones that looked like an artist had gone crazy with colour. We would go diving there, seeking it out one day and returning the next with dive equipment, sometimes we would go snorkelling. Kanda and Lavi would take it in turns to dive as deep as they could, returning with hidden treasures; sea glass, shells, dead coral in interesting shapes – magic as Lavi called it.<p>

These were our favourite ones, the beaches that we would mark on maps and return to, trying to find new beaches as good as, or better.

We'd spend ages at these beaches and then return back to the house, smelling like the sea. Lenalee would spend an hour in the shower, trying to rid her hair of salt and get it to well-schooled smoothness. She often despaired of her hair, comparing it to Kanda's long ebony locks that always seemed perfect even though he washed it with bar soap and never brushed it. Lavi and I held the same lack of care for our hair as Kanda, but unlike Kanda, our hair grew wild, scruffily wild blown and salt-shocked. Lavi kept his fiery red hair back by use of a headband, while I kept my unruly mop in a short ponytail until I found the time to lop it back with a pair of kitchen scissors so it just looked permanently electrified due to its paper white shade.

Lenalee used to complain about the drives, and Lavi about the lack of pretty girls, but soon the long drives out became as important as the destination, an integral part of the day, unquestionable and unchangeable. They were as enjoyable as any fun to be had. Sometimes, we would stop at road shacks and buy fresh fruit, coconuts, watermelon, avocados, or closer to the beach; fresh prawns that we would eat sitting under a palm tree cracking the shells off and throwing them about, laughing at each other.

One time, we drove for hours, windows down and wind blowing, cruising down the highway. We kept going long after the point that we should have turned back and headed for home. It was about five when we ran out of gas. The sun hung low and burning in the orange sky. By chance, or perhaps fate, we had broken down about ten meters from a beach, tiny and palm fringed, sheltered from the worst of the rolling surf. In the sunset, the water matched the sky.

We decided to stay there for the night; Lavi and Kanda set up a giant bonfire while Lenalee found place to put up her hammock. Timcanpi had charged into the waves the moment he had gotten out of the car and then ran around excitedly, sprinkling everyone with water from his wildly waving tail.

In the pale moonlight the sand was a bleached white and the water velvet black and liquid silver. We cooked sausages over the bonfire that was sending red gold sparks floating to the stars. And while we laughed and shared tales, remembering and reminiscing, I still felt the bitter sweet knowledge that this was a moment in time that we may never experience again and so should be grasped within two hands, clasped in thankfulness. I had a feeling that we all felt that, because Lenalee shifted closer to Lavi, nestling into the curve of his body, resting her head on his chest. Timcanpi had flung himself down beside me and I had stroked him glancing over at Kanda who, as always in moments like that seemed to have withdrawn within himself.

I had reached out and cautiously touched his out stretched fingers with the very tips of mine, and then left them there is a small type of hand holding. It gratified and worried me when he didn't shift his fingers away. We all felt it, but soon that small, quiet moment passed and we began to laugh again, Lavi doing the run to the van for more beer and wine.

In the morning I woke to find Kanda missing and a message written in the sand, _"Gone for a run. You weren't up, didn't want to wake you. K"_  
>At the time it seemed insignificant and unimportant. But later I would wonder where he had gone, and then what had it meant.<p>

Instead, I had shrugged it off and ran into the inviting surf. The beach was no less beautiful by day, the trees and emerald green in the light, the water a sapphire azure green colour. The sun, just beginning to rise, lent itself gold on the waves, shimmering in a stepping stone pattern. I was too busy swimming, I didn't realise that Kanda was back until the slight scent of smoke from someone getting a fire to spark again reached me.

It turned out that Kanda had taken a five kilometre run to the last general store we had passed to pick up two canisters of petrol and food; ingredients for pancakes and stuff for lunch

Once again Lavi and Lenalee were woken by the smell of cooking pancakes, as I hopped about the fire adjusting logs and the piece of sheet metal I had found and was now using as a pan.

Lavi spotted a coconut palm towards the end of the small bay and promptly climbed up it in order to retrieve the coconuts on the end of it. We had breakfast that day with pancakes and coconuts and salt sea breeze in our hair. We arrived late home that night; just before we'd been about to leave, a pod of dolphins came into the cove, we spent another hour or so with them, just playing, before we moved on.

Our summers were long, lazy - rewards for slaving away at uni and our part time jobs, Lavi at his apprenticeship. We looked forward to these holidays; we didn't truly feel like summer had started until we had the first drinks of the holiday, on the deck, watching the sunset set the sea afire. For the first few nights of the summer, Lavi and Lenalee would bounce Kanda and me from party to party before we all got tired of the hangovers, and of drinking Lavi's vile hangover cure. It worked, for sure, but it contained 'The Bookman's sacred, secret hangover-cure ingredient' which was almost guaranteed to be something like dried sea horse piss. The Bookman, Lavi's mentor and guardian, was Chinese and all of his medicines and cures had something weird in it. We never asked what the secret ingredient was; we never wanted to know.

That's what summer was to us, summer was something that kept us going during the year and later, the memories would give us an escape and the strength to endure the war. Truth be told, it was the war that ended our summers, The Bookman pulled Lavi out of the country to take him someplace safer – not wanting his only apprentice to die. Kanda and I were called up for service, I almost escaped duty due to my arm, but they decided that it didn't inhibit my chances very much and that I had to go. Kanda didn't have such a chance.

During training the sergeants noticed his fighting competency, and in doing so, mine as well. We were some of the first new recruits to be sent to the front line. There Kanda fought with a single minded intensity that impressed our superiors although his cold and angry manner won him no friends. He never told me what he fought for but I knew what it was because his reason was the same as mine. We fought for our summers, the memory, and the hope that we could protect what was ours. Then, the memory of our summers became the most important things to us, more so than letters from home – Lavi and Lenalee, who had been aiding the war effort in every way she could. It was the memories that made me go back for Kanda when he went down during a battle. That deed won me a medal, but all I could remember was that I almost lost him that day, It was an achievement that he'd survived, but a miracle that he'd healed as fast as he did.

When the war had ended, we went back home, heroes. Lavi came back from where he'd been and Lenalee came up to meet us, bringing Tim who'd I had left with her to take care of. We'd all changed, Kanda suffered from insomnia that only violent exertion could overcome, while I had nightmares and late night flashbacks that would leave me running along the beach in the morning as fast as I could to try and shake them off. Lavi was assuaged by guilt for leaving me and Kanda alone on the battle front and Lenalee had lost some her carefree spirit, but we were still together, all four of us, us and our summers and our days in the sea.

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><p>I know I've been away a long time, and there's no excuse for it. (Sorry).<p>

I think this is too short...


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